Answer:
24*x^4
Step-by-step explanation:
We want to find the third term of the equation:
(x^2 + 2)^4
So we need to expand that.
Remember the rule:
(a + b)^2 = a^2 + 2*a*b + b^2
(a + b + c)^2 = a^2 + b^2 + c^2 + 2*a*b + 2*b*c + 2*c*a
Then we can write:
(x^2 + 2)^4 = (x^2 + 2)^2*(x^2 + 2)^2
and we have:
(x^2 + 2)^2 = (x^4 + 2*2*x^2 + 2^2) = (x^4 + 4*x^2 + 4)
Then we have:
(x^2 + 2)^4 = (x^2 + 2)^2*(x^2 + 2)^2
(x^2 + 2)^4 = (x^4 + 4*x^2 + 4)^2
And we can expand this as:
(x^4)^2 + (4*x^2)^2 + 4^2 + 2*(x^4)*(4*x^2) + 2*(4*x^2)*(4) + 2*(x^4)*(4)
now we have this expanded, so we need to simplify this:
x^8 + 16*x^4 + 16 + 8*x^6 + 32*x^2 + 8*x^4
Putting the terms in order (larger degrees go in the left) we get:
x^8 + 8*x^6 + 16*x^4 + 8*x^4 + 32*x^2 + 16
x^8 + 8*x^6 + (16 + 8)*x^4 + 32*x^2 + 16
x^8 + 8*x^6 + 24*x^4 + 32*x^2 + 16
So the third term would be the third counting from the left, which is:
24*x^4